The AI bot will begin answering ten types of select low-risk non-emergency call types, such as simple information requests or reports that do not require emergent assistance for Emporia, Lyon County, and Emporia State University. The AI technology will not affect emergency calls.
When a caller begins to speak with the call bot, the information will be instantly transmitted to the Emergency Communications Center, where staff will continue processing and assigning the appropriate response.
If the caller describes an escalation or emergency, the AI will transfer the call to one of LCECC’s trained 9-1-1 professionals.
The pilot program, operated in partnership with San Francisco-based startup Hyper, is set to last four months. The cost for the four-month trial period was $16,200 and was approved by the Lyon County Commission in August.
Roxanne Van Gundy, director of LCECC, says that their partnership with Hyper arose from a necessity due to staffing shortages and high call volumes.
“We’re no different than any other 911 center in the nation. Everybody is struggling with staffing,” said Van Gundy. “It's a difficult job to learn. There are a lot of things that you have to learn. You have to know a little bit about everything that goes on in this county, and the call load has only increased throughout the years.”
Van Gundy says that the use of the AI call bot is designed to give LCECC staff more time to answer emergency calls and alleviate the strain on personnel.
“We've been taking all of these extra non-emergency calls as they come in which divert all of our attention for a short period and then we have to get back into whatever emergency we were dealing with,” she said. “We just want to be in a state where we can really focus solely on the emergencies as much as we possibly can.”
“Betty” has one more important feature: Spanish language capabilities. The bot will detect if a caller is speaking in Spanish and automatically transition into responding to the caller in Spanish.
The new bot had already received eight calls through its first few hours of operation Monday, with no major issues, according to Van Gundy. She hopes that, in addition to the reduced workload for the limited staff at the communications center, the change will be one that the citizens they serve are on board with.
“If we could take ten percent of our non-emergency calls out of the mix, and our staff notices, that to me would be an impact,” she said. “I want to ensure that our citizens feel like they're being served, but also, I want to make sure our employees feel like it's worthwhile to them.”
©2025 The Emporia Gazette, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
